I got my first GWP when I lived in an apartment in the city. At 2.5 years he was ranked #3 for amature bird dogs where I lived there. And after I moved I guided hunts with him for years after “BUT” I was single and ran him every day on birds. I used to drive around the parking garage at the mall with a fishing net and catch pigeons on my way home from work, then work him in a small construction area where they were building a Home Depot. I never shot the pigeons, caught the same ones weekly, worked him the first year daily on them and when he would point I would toss a frozen bird or a bumper with a wing to retrieve, then on weekends I would travel out to the game preserve and buy a few chukars or pheasants to run him on and shoot those.
A bird dog needs a purpose, it’s just like any working breed. No purpose and it will go crazy. If you don’t plan to hunt it, there are lots of other things to train and run your dog on. Dock dogs, retrieving (fetch) lead control, tracking and so on. Just mix in birds every once in a while and it will make it easier to train him on birds in the future. The first year or two is mainly basic training and fetch anyway.
My pap always told me, “Teach a dog to learn, the rest is easy”